The 14th
annual Long Beach Island DXpedition was held November13-16, 2015
at our long-time base, the Drifting Sands motel in Ship Bottom, NJN. Some of
the participants arrived Thursday, others Friday and one or two were able to
attend only for one evening. Upon arrival, we discovered that since the 2014
event, a major beach replenishment project had been undertake, resulting in a
total re-configuration of beach access and protection, including a large new
dune at the back of the beach.

This coupled with another
re-design of the fence protecting the dune made it immediately evident that
there would be no use of BOGs this year or going forward. We were able to
deploy the 16x36 flag, the 6 broadband loop and two Wellbrook
loops.

Conditions however were at best
mediocre with a few TAs evident Thursday evening, but mostly nothing after
that, and also there was no significant enhancement to the South either. Thus
much of the groups effort was directed toward domestics this time. This was a
distinct disappointment knowing that a number of previous regular TA
transmitters on both LW and MW would be closed down before our 15th
gathering.

As is often the case when
conditions work against us, there was plenty of time for DX chat, checking out
the various SDRs, and repairing or retuning some of the Drake R8 series
receivers.

The new configuration on the
beach includes a landing atop the dune along the main access area to the beach.
In addition to providing an excellent vantage point for one of our antennas,
this also will permit us to relocate our operations to the end of the building
closest to that accessway which
in turn will permit us some added area for loops, and also a better radius for
them, as we will now be able to aim inland without directing the antenna
pattern through the building.